GUM PLANT (Grindelia cuneifolia, Nutt.). Flower heads 

 about 2 inches across, both disk florets and rays present and 

 both yellow, solitary at the tips of panicled branchlets, the 

 buds remarkable for a covering of whitish gum. Leaves 

 thick, narrow, 3 or 4 inches long, the upper disposed to be 

 clasping at the base and without footstalks. A coarse, bushy 

 plant, woody at the base, 2^ to 4 feet high, blooming showily 

 in late summer and autumn in salt marshes and on seaside 

 shores from Southern California northward. 



There are several species of Grindelia indigenous to the 

 Pacific Coast, recognized in a general way by the peculiar 

 gumminess of the buds and flower heads, which occasions the 

 common name Gum Plant. These resinous tops were used 

 medicinally by the Indians both internally, made into a tea, 

 for troubles of the respiratory organs, and as a wash for rhus 

 poisoning-^uses to which modern whites also put them. On 

 the dry hillsides of inland- California Grindelia robusta, Nutt. 

 is common, which resembles G. cuneifolia, but the stem is her- 

 baceous at the base instead of woody, and the larger, more 

 rigid leaves are mostly sharp toothed. Grindelia commem- 

 orates a European botanist of a century ago named Grindel. 



229 



